Paranoia II and Hanlon's razor

When your brain is working on two opposing thoughts at the same time:


Me: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

Also me: But it's so freaking obvious I'm being singled out here OMFG!


Ugh. It honestly sucks being me at times, because I can hold two perfectly opposing thoughts in my head at the same time, and believe both with a weight of certainty that you'd find difficult to shift. What do we call that, girls and boys? cognitive dissonance.


Sometimes it's fun and can prompt debate until the little grey cells finally decide which team they're rooting for, but other times it's just a source of terrible, almost debilitating anxiety and paranoia.


Two recent examples:


1) I enrolled on my course late on in the season. Ok, very late. Just last month, actually. All the other students seem to float around on invisible cushions of knowledge, secure that they know what they need to know in order to get through the academic year. Then there's me, drowning and clawing at any titbit of information because No, I'm not actually enrolled on that VLE board whence the information came. Now, was it a slip of the mind? Was it just an admin error? Or maybe they're just screwing with me so I'll drop out?


Me: All 3. Has to be. No other explanation.

Also me: But maybe...

Me: No, seriously - it's all 3 at the same time. Go stew on it some.




2) My eldest is due to go to Primary school (aka Elementary school etc.) in 2017 and we hear on the Mom Grapevine that there's a meeting at the local school for parents of the new-kids-to-be. No word from the school itself. No word from their Nursery (aka Daycare, Kindergarten). A letter surfaces, dated T-8 days but which was actually received at T-2 days with a tear-off RSVP to be handed in at T-4 days by the latest. (See where this is going?) Slip of the mind? Admin error? Screwing with us?


Me: All 3. Has to be. No other explanation.

Also me: But maybe...

Me: No, seriously - it's all 3 at the same time. Go stew on it some.


Meanwhile the rest of the moms have no letter and thus, in theory, do not know about this meeting (which is, by the way, tomorrow morning). I swear, if a letter DOES make its way to me, there will be a fairly sharp-assed response being sent back instead of that stupid RSVP.


As it stands, we have panic, anxiety and paranoia running a race in my head over who gets to chair the latest meeting of "How do we get through college?" with Schrödinger's Primary School meeting set to happen (and not happen) tomorrow morning causing me more anxiety because this is my firstborn's future we're talking here and I have some CONCERNS I'd like to talk to the school about, thanks very much.


It's all fun and games, until it's not.

executive functioning disorder as part of the rest of my issues

Peaks and troughs, waxing and waning; my whole damn life is a rollercoaster and not in the fun way.

When I'm neutral or hyper, I get shit done. When I'm hyper I get a LOT of shit done, and sometimes to the extreme of needing done (I have a bullet journal that I started when I was hyper, it's been planned out til the middle of next year. I also started two essays when I was hyper and managed to finish one and half finish the other before the cycle ended - neither were due until the month after). When the mood screams to a halt or starts to slide over the cliff, my productivity goes down, apathy goes up and intention gets defenestrated.

This isn't the hour-to-hour or day-to-day moods, those are part of the BPD and I can ride those through to their conclusion fairly well after identifying them. No. This is the week-to-week, month-to-month mood shift that is part of the Bipolar, that is so subtle I can't see it until I'm so entrenched in it that it feels like I'm walking through treacle. And this is after a decade of knowing about the nature of these damn moods, I STILL can't fully identify them until after the fact. Fuck's sake.

Back to the EFD. This is part of the Asperger's. It waxes and wanes according to my moods and doesn't particularly care why the mood is what it is, just that it IS:

• I can be in an overall depression when the BPD comes up and goes "let's sing to ourselves for NO APPARENT REASON!" and all of a sudden I'm getting the shit done, looking fairly presentable, being fairly productive - all whilst being depressed to the point of self-harm - and then suddenly the productive mood drops. Boom. The shit is no longer getting done and I look like a homeless person caricature. 
• I can be in a hypomanic state where I'm singing all the time, excitable, nonsensical, where getting all the shit done in the blink of an eye seems just so doable but let's go do this first, eh? Too high to appreciate that the shit actually needs to get done, thanks all the same.
• When I'm euthymic, the shit to be done list is like a chores list and it gets worked through as and when. This is when I'm least affected by EFD. It's a fairly boring stage. Chores be as chores do. But hey, it's gotta get done and I'm not exactly invested in what's on the tv just now so let's get to it. Even the laundry eventually gets folded when I'm like this.

At the moment, I'm struggling. I struggle to get up through the night to attend to the goddamn nightowl spawn of satan we affectionately call "our youngest". I struggle to see the needs of others (oh? you are hungry? and you're telling me this because...?). I struggle to get anything done. You can put me in front of a sink of hot soapy water and give me the tools I need to get those few dishes that require hand-washing done... and I'll just stand there in a fog or sit down on the floor. There's three weeks of laundry to put away. Nearly 4 weeks. And I know this because NOT ONCE has it been tracked in my housework tracker, and I started that bitch on the 14th November.

I severely dislike being this way but it's not as simple as saying "suck it up buttercup, let's get going" - might work for an hour or two that day but after that I slump back down and can't be moved again. I had help a little while back from SAMH in the form of Jo, who would come around once a week and who initially got me to plan to do the work that needed doing the most. I did it. It tired me out. Wanna know what "it" was? Yeah, just putting the laundry away. Seems stupid, eh. And yet here we are. I managed to do that and a little more by the next week. Updated the plan. Eventually, at the end of 6 weeks I had a schedule to follow. Just a Monday to Friday schedule, leave the weekends free. And then it started to slide, I don't even know when. By the time I got my journal up and running, I was able to see that I wasn't doing as much as I thought I was doing. Tracker boxes going unfilled, tasks getting migrated. It's a hassle for anyone to get dressed who isn't me (because I wear the same shit over and over until it NEEDS laundering, basically - another Asperger's thing apparently), because all the clothes and towels etc are in a pile on top of a suitcase that hasn't yet been unpacked from our OCTOBER holiday. The kids still have their summer clothes in their drawers, the winter clothes safely packed away. And yet here I sit, arms like lead, typing this shit out to the 'verse where nobody will read it.


Meh.

There's something missing from my life

You know my background: I have Asperger's Syndrome and Borderline Personality Disorder. There are so many inspiring stories about those who have overcome, those who have defied the odds, those who have illnesses who have done the unexpected... and then there's me.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen - I am missing something. I don't have a superpower!

Everyone else seems to have a superpower. Amazing empathy, kindness; can tell you the number one single from when you were born; can play an instrument; great with numbers, memory; beautiful handwriting... seems like everyone who has something has something. What do I have? I don't have nothing, you know - I've got family and friends who care greatly for me, and I them. Got a roof over our heads and a means to get from A to B fairly reliably. But what do I have to offer?

A fairly fiery temper.


(ok, I've been stuck for about 5 minutes here, a little help?)

I make a pretty decent bolognese.


(stuck again)



That's it, guys and gals. That's it. Can't think of anything else.

Even a little party trick (aside from grinding the bones in my wrist) would be nice.


So I can haz for Xmas plx?

Wanna be a model?

*going out on a limb here*

I'm looking for people with first-hand experience of mental illness who would be happy to answer a couple of questions and send a headshot selfie to an email address/facebook page.

I'm looking for men, women and everyone in between; the young and old, the ones in recovery, the ones who feel they're stuck in a rut, the ones who hide it from friends and family and the ones who are more open about it. The hurting and the healing. I'm looking for these people and their answers and their images to create an artistic series called "Fractured People".

I'm hoping that by creating this series and getting these images out there it will reduce the stigma around mental health (because make no bones about it, there's still a hell of a lot of stigma); that it will comfort those involved even if they choose to remain anonymous, and bring to the attention of those who perpetuate mental health stigma (in whatever form, accidentally or by design) the very real face of mental illness - waking them up, educating them and helping to reduce stigma.

If you can help, or if you know someone who might be interested - please show them this. Don't post it to them publicly; copy and private message them, screencap and email them, show them this post on your phone and let them decide if it's for them, privately.

Thanks for reading.

***If anyone's interested you can private mail me on fb; at my fb page Kitty's Design Studio or email me at 035963@uhi.ac.uk***

Hypochondria and Paranoia

Docs appointment was... painful. I'm going back on meds for the foreseeable future. I'm "not emotionally equipped to deal with the demands of very young children in [my] current state". Fact is, when I was last off meds, my household comprised of... me. Just me. So a very different environment to be off-meds in.

And about the zzzzzip? I wasn't just paranoid, I was being a hypochondriac as well, which are both discrete symptoms of psychosis and the thing I was dreading I might have... but my Doc listened to me carefully and posed an alternative diagnosis of nothing whatsoever to do with my mental health. She thinks I've got vertigo. You know, as opposed to Schizo-Affective Disorder.

Well, I've never had vertigo before so how would I know what it was like?! Of course I leap to psychological reasons for hinky health matters, my brain has been the root cause of my difficulties since I was a teenager.

So goodbye unmedicated self. It's been fun a right pain in the ass.

Paranoia

Is that what this is?

My guts keep twisting up for no earthly reason, so it's likely stress related. And I am stressed. I'm off meds and noticing niggly little worrying things about my behaviour. I'm not just Little Miss Shouty, I bloody roar at times, for one. And that's no good for anyone. I'm also short-tempered as hell with virtually everyone and everything which has culminated in some very sad and almost sheepish looks from those I love most - and it's totally not their fault, it's all on me. I think too fast, I think too slow, I can't think at all and my fingers follow suit because I find myself typing pure gibberish if I'm not careful. I have to be careful with how I look about the place because all of a sudden, my vision "slips" with a weird kind of muffled zzzzzip sound to it. It's like the background volume gets turned down for the duration of the zip. It's quite disorienting when it happens.

I think I have developed (or maybe have always had but it's been disguised or misdiagnosed) SOMETHING else. And that SOMETHING else is some scary shit. I don't know if it's a reaction to coming off the meds like I did (I know, I know) or if this is the genuine article previously disguised by the meds. I'm tracking it for a few weeks to see if there's a pattern, to see if it calms the fuck down or what.

I'm even more worried than ever that things are going to go so horribly wrong with my personal life, that things will blow up or worse, slip and slide and drift away. Maybe both. There's just too much going on inside my head and it's suffocating the other stuff that ought to be going on but isn't. I feel bad because this isn't what they signed up for, but at the same time I can't help it, so what do I do? And then I lose track of time, of days, dates... I'm trying to be more organised but it's just showing up how disorganised I really am, it's pretty shocking.

Am I paranoid? I'm not wearing a tinfoil hat or picking up personal messages through the TV, but I have this constant chatter in my head which I've always assumed is normal, but it's got a TONE to it now, a little "well, I wasn't going to say it buuuuut..." kinda tone. You know the one. I don't even know if a running monologue IS normal, it's not like I've got access to other people's brains to try and find out. I've just assumed it's normal because it's always been there. And yes of course it tells me to do things, otherwise shit I don't want to do wouldn't get done. It also tells me it's perfectly OK to go and buy a doughnut and scoff it in the car when nobody is looking but that's a whole other story.

Got an appt with my shrink tomorrow. See what she can make of all this, or if I'm just worrying (and stressing and crying) over nothing.

Fun times.

Mental Health Stigma

Stigma Survey

1 in 4 people will at some point have a mental illness. This may be a transient illness or lifelong. This means that 1 in 4 people may also have been prejudiced against or stigmatised because of their condition. This is a sad state of affairs, however you look at it.

What can you do if you think you're a victim of stigma? My personal favourite is to remember some pithy comebacks to fire at people. This may not necessarily work with your sweet little granny who just can't process what you're going through - you may just have to nod and smile there, folks - but it should sure put others in their place.

What we can all do though is to make sure we don't contribute to the stigma ourselves. Hell, even I've contributed to it and I have plenty wrong with my mental health. I need to stop trivialising it, for a start.

If you've got a minute, please clicky on the linky (top) and do the little survey. It's completely anonymous. If it makes you think, great. If it makes you want to help others, even better.

Thx.

The Sacred Art of the BuJo

My psychiatrist suggested this, it's kinda like the geeky version of those adult colouring in books you get (which I also have, by the way, but rarely have the time for). I'm addicted already. I have an LT1917 in pretty purple, a set of 30 Staedtler Triplus Fineliners and a Pinterest board full of ideas. I've got space in my weeklies for: my dailies, a to-do list, three different trackers which then report back to master trackers, a menu and shopping list, a space for college stuff, my weekly bank report and a mini calendar so I can plan ahead. Sounds complicated but once you get your head around the concept, it's not only easy but incredibly therapeutic! I'll get some nice pics for the next blog.

Sneakily off my meds and now I cry at all the things

Xmas adverts? check
Armistice day announcement? check
Thinking about homeless kittens? check
Thinking about that kid who was called a "mutt" by his teacher, and all he wants to do is help people? check
Thinking, period. check
The opening ceremony of Blizzcon? check
Certain music which previously was no bother to me? check
Being cold? check

All of these things have made me cry in the last couple of weeks since coming off my meds.

The meds have kept me in a holding pattern, not able to experience the full gamut of emotions I'm capable of and so not allowing me to deal with them either. So I'm learning now. The therapy course I was on is really coming into play now, and I'm working really hard at managing my emotions, but jeeeez it's tough, eh! Tiring.

But when I'm high, I can really enjoy it. And when the low comes, I know that it isn't going to last forever. The general low I've been on hasn't lasted as long as I thought - I was in it for all of 18 months, I think, maybe 24. So things are looking up and looking well now.

And I'm going to start journaling like EVERYTHING in a bullet journal.

Art 'n' shit.

I've been exploring the concepts of Identity and Self (and to a lesser degree, Emotion) through art since the second year of my degree back in 2002-3. Since then, I have discovered the works of a Scottish philosopher and sceptic whose theories about the self, about personal identity and about emotion all resonate with me fantastically. David Hume was an 18th century philosopher firmly in the bundle theory camp - that is, he believed that the notion of the self over time was untenable and that what we are instead is a bundle of perceptions at any given point. His work on emotion (the Passions) comes to this conclusion - that emotions are reflective (as in, internal) impressions.

Assuming both of these ideas to be inherently true, then a stunning revelation (stunning to me, at any rate) can be made: If all we are is a collection of perceptions AND our emotions are a perception, an impression of internal reflection THEN our self at any given time can be depicted as merely a reflection of our emotional state.

Emotional states can fracture people and their personalities, however. Strength can often be found in those who fight to pull themselves together, even when they fail. The Cubists fractured images and objects and reassembled them from different viewpoints in an abstract manner to further explore and achieve a greater understanding of the subjects. The Japanese view breakage and repair as part of an object's history and story, they embrace the flawed and imperfect (Kintsugi).

This ties in with my goals as an artist: to explore and achieve a greater understanding of the Self, of Identity, of Emotion by embracing the flawed and imperfect and making it beautiful once more. I hope to take the viewer on a journey of reflection and inspire in them the desire to love themselves fully for whomever they may be...

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In addition to this I would like to raise awareness of mental health issues and in doing so reduce the stigma around talking about it. I hope to achieve this through an art and social practice series of pictures, made up from images I take and images people send me together with a brief questionnaire which I will then interpret into the title and background of the piece.

5 days left on my sub.

Looks like I'm quitting WoW again.

Go away on hols for a couple of weeks and your raid team have already left normal behind and are considering mythic raiding? Yeah, and they re-did the roster and everything and I've been left off it, too. I'm not going to have the time to give to gear up (again) and research raids (again) and actually RAID as part of even team "leftovers", and my friends are all busy doing their own thing in the game, including raiding in the proper raid teams with an ilvl 30+ points higher than what I scraped together to get.... just fuck it. The game is moving faster than I am and I just have to accept that this is it for me.

I am beyond upset.

Mommy's going to be an Artist again!

I did my degree, went straight to the local psych ward to switcheroo my meds and haven't seriously done art since. I've wanted to but something hasn't quite clicked. UNTIL NOW! mwa ha ha ha ha ha

I applied for and was called for an interview for a post as an art lecturer. Didn't get it. What I did get was a renewed thirst to do art. Called in and was called for an interview to finish my degree (was a plain degree at the time, no Hons to speak of) and ended up being told that I was only fit for second year. A proper THUMP that was, but it was true. I had no aesthetic to speak of and no practice and I couldn't put into words what I wanted to say with my art.

UNTIL NOW!

mwa ha ha ha ha ha

So Mommy is going back to college to do art. Mommy has herself a shiny new fb page and Deviant Art page. Mommy is very enthusiastic about this whole thing and would very much like a shed to put all her stuff in, thanks...

Mommy will be 40 by the time she finishes this. Cuh-rikey.

Grief

People deal with grief in different ways. I tend to feel it suddenly and acutely and then not at all. That's ok. It's just how I operate. But I know it can be difficult for others to get their heads around.

We lost my father-in-law last night, it was very sudden. Here one minute, gone the next. I've done my crying for him. He was a wonderful grandfather to our kids. Any future crying will be for those left behind, they need the sympathy and empathy more.

I wrote this earlier today. Through the day different people have said or done things that have made me cry unexpectedly. Random acts of kindness. Asking about the kids. Asking after me. I expect there will be more tears to come, as well - we've not yet told the kids that they've lost a grandad. We aren't doing "heaven" but instead will say he's died and that means he's living in the stars now. Simple enough.

The worst part of this is being apart from hubby dearest, who needs all the support he can get at such a sad time. But his place is by his mom and brothers. So sad.

Every silver lining has a cloud - or why bad things happen to good people.

The good news we got in February turned sour and we are now pretty much broke for the foreseeable future thanks to an overpayment from HMRC (their fault) which they are refusing to write off. It's complicated. We've written in to complain about it and implore they change their minds. Not hopeful.

Anxiety and depression are rearing their ugly heads in the house, leading to chest pains and much shouting. It's linked to the money worries. Even though I'm mentally not fit to work, I keep looking for jobs. I got an interview. It was disastrous. I was shaking like a leaf for most of it, with a lip and eye twitch to boot. See, I look pretty good on paper. Not so much in person. Still waiting to hear about the other jobs I've applied for. Ugh.

On a brighter note, there's a chance I could continue with my studies and complete my honours degree in Fine Art... which would lead to better communication and confidence with the staff, more familiarity with the setup at the college... an in-road to a job, should another art position arise. Because, you see, I can't teach primary. Too many kids. Can't teach secondary. Not enough respect from the kids. But I think I can teach other adults. That leaves tertiary education... so I need to do my honours, get a 2:1 or higher, go and get a teaching job and then do my TQFE through the job to keep the job. I think it's the only kind of job I could do. Just need to get funding for it or I'll not be able to do it at all because of aforementioned brokeness.

And keep your fingers crossed that my tax returns don't get bounced back, eh?

new diagnosis time!

It's been just over two years since I was told I probably had Borderline Personality Disorder. In that 2 years, I've learned a lot about it, and how to better manage it. I've been on a year long Mentalization Based Therapy course, and whilst that has helped in some respects, it's not delivered in others. This is because I also have Asperger's.

Time. Time during which you've had an emotional breakdown of some description. Cried, stamped your feet so hard they hurt, punched a wall, shouted. Time is the difference between MBT being successfully integrated into your psyche because the breakdown of your mentalization has been caused by BPD, and the endless pop-up scenario of MANY MENUS! HANDLE IT! which means your breakdown in mentalizing is caused by the Asperger's. Can you see what I mean here?

The good news is that once you've accessed the program (remember how frustrating it was when your mouse accidentally left the menu and the whole thing collapsed back to the start?! GAH!) it's easily run. But it hasn't replaced the original programming - that runs as soon as the event triggers your response - it is just another option for you to access.

You know, a real life HUD would be very handy. Can you imagine? Like the Terminator:

I gotta get me one of those.


So that's the difference between BPD and Asperger's for me as far as MBT goes.

As for the similarities...

Eish.

Asperger's is my personal Occam's Razor. It explains a lot. And by "a lot" I mean practically everything:

From walking up walls and pacing as a child to collecting ALL THE THINGS in different phases as a teen/adult. You should see my yarn stash. No, seriously. Pets in Warcraft (before they went all Pokémon on it), Pokémon (used to be able to name the original 101 easily); and the water thing - OHMIGOD I had no idea that was a recognised thing. Fecking hate the taste of the stuff and will only drink it if I absolutely must.

Welp, you're all up to date on me. Ta ra.

and all of a sudden, things are looking up a little

Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you things that will make your life easier and that will help you to relax and be content, at least. A small change in circumstances can lead to a life-changing series of events and thankfully even though the change in circumstances has been negative, the outcome has been decidedly positive.

Don't get me wrong, this hasn't "cured" me, I will still get like I was on the 14th; it will just help me in between times to not be as continuously "down", and the therapy will help me stay grounded and not revert to an inward spiral of catastrophising.

It can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you time. Housework getting done time. Work getting done time. Me time. That is happiness.

When your best just isn't good enough.

When you can't get up the willpower to shower every second day, never mind plan meals so you can diet. When you struggle to get out of bed in the morning but you do so because of the kids. If you had a choice, you wouldn't, but those lovable little energy vampires make you. When your "business" is blatantly a loss-making machine but you have to be a declared business because otherwise HMRC will scalp you. Oh, the paperwork. When the therapy you've been attending for nearly a year has helped a little bit, but not helped in the way you needed. When your Social Worker doesn't bother to return your calls. When your kid's daycare threaten to call Social Services because all of a sudden, after a year of being perfectly happy with him, they now suspect neglect. Fuck you, Mrs Campbell. Fuck you very much. When you're so disgusted with how you look you dread seeing your friends. Your family. Your own husband. When you're trying so hard but you don't know what for or why because none of it seems to make a blind bit of difference. When you can't afford weight loss surgery even though you've got the evidence in your medical records that would likely get you it on the NHS oh-but-there's-a-waiting-list. Fuck it. When all you want to do is curl up and crochet, but you can't because your husband is tired and the kids aren't and oh, now you have RSI to mix in with all of that, so your hobby-cum-business can't move forward and you're left typing on the computer instead.

Pity party, my house. Bring me Tesco's Finest Salted Caramel crème liqueur for entry. Or some butterscotch schnapps.

it's been a long time coming

three years, really. a month after my eldest was born i let my WoW sub lapse and barring the odd month here and there where i tested whether i could go back, i've finally resubbed and upgraded to the newest xpac. oh and i've reverted back to ignoring most initial capitals. suck it up, grammar nazis.

i have a toon on an RPPVP server (fun so far, only been ganked once), and i'm relearning how to hunter before picking which realm (and thus which faction) to use my boosts on.

WoW is a kind of mindfulness exercise for me, it seems. i can just zone out whilst questing, as i know most of them like the back of my hand at these early levels. just keep questing, just keep questing.

i'm a PVE gamer on a PVP realm, so i hate seeing those multicoloured bars pop up on my screen, means fight or flight response is triggered and that's kinda the opposite of mindfulness. so my new approach is "whatever" and go log an alt until the ganker gets bored of corpse-sitting. it's just a game, there's nothing life or death about being ganked (ironically enough) to warrant being stressed over it. how long this takes to go from logic to automatic response is anyone's guess.